Cows Milk - thoughts, experience please

[Soozi]

Just wondering on folks views. My SIL said she bf for 10 months and then went straight onto cows milk as she thought that 2 months on formula was a bit pointless. TBH I'd like to start feeding my DD1 cows milk now but note that all books say to wait until 12 months. My DD1 is a thriving healthy baby. She has had yohurts, cheese and cows milk mixed in with other stuff and seems perfectly happy with it.

Bf exclusively until 4.5 months, she took to solids really well and continued bf until 7.5 months then switched to formula. I try to make my own food as much as possible and only use jars in emergencies if out and about. she pretty much eats what we do, albeit liquidised into varying consistencies depending what it is. Gets lots of fruit, no sweets or juice. Now at 9 months given that she has had no adverse effects to anything so far, I'm wondering if giving her cow's milk now would be too early. There are no allergies in either side of the family.

A breastfeeding councillor and a Midwife on MNet both say cow's milk is usually ok instead of formula from 8 months, maybe earlier. I don't feel comfortable with that advice, either, but I know it's the reply you'll get here.

Hi Soozi, my personal feeling is that 9 months is a bit young, but I am not an expert! My DD is 10 and a half months and still has formula, but we are planning to start switching to cows milk in a few weeks. She won't quite be 12 months but I don't think a few weeks would make much difference!

We traveled to England with my daughter when she was 11 months old and I asked her paedeatrician if we could switch to cow's milk then just to make it easier and more convenient when traveling. He said no, that we really should wait until 12 months.

We use cow's milk sparingly in food for ds (11 mo) but haven't yet given it as a drink as I've been generally advised not to do so. I know what you mean though when you say your dd seems quite happy eating 'adult' food and has no apparent allergies - ds is the same and it does sometimes seem strange not to be able to give cow's milk as well. But I would say stick with the formula since she's happy with that until 12 mo, just to be on the safe side.

Soozi - since your baby is on formula anyway there is no benefit to switching to cow's milk at 9 months (except possibly financially). Babies should really have breastmilk or formula till one year old. I was a mum who stopped breastfeeding at 10 months for one of my babies because I was pregnant and felt rotten. I used cows milk in foods but not as a drink. Although DS is healthy, I breastfed the other 2 over one year. Only one of my children had cows milk as a drink over a year anyway anyway - they didn't like it until they were much older.

Thanks for the comments - only factor that was making me consider changing was the convenience as we are out and about a fair bit.

I asked my hv about this and she said really you could probably start around 10 months, but they can't tell people that or they'd push it back to 8 or even 7 months. I breastfed ds for 13 months, then tried milk with him in a cup and he just doesn't seem to like it. My sister bottlefed and she's now (at a year) mixing about half formula, half milk and will keep reducing the formula till my niece is drinking milk... By the way my Canadian baby book says 10-12 months for introducing milk.

DD went from formula to cow's milk at 9/10 months with no ill effects. She'd had cow's milk in food from around 5 months. As there's no history of allergies in your family and your DD has no health probs I'd go for it. There isn't some magic switch that suddenly turns on to enable them to take cow's milk on their first b'day.

Surely the point is not that they CAN'T have cow's milk, but what they really need is breastmilk or formula - in other words, the cow's milk shouldn't replace breastmilk or formula as the main drink, but is perfectly safe in itself. After all it makes no difference to the baby whether they have cow's milk on their weetabix and formula in their cup at breakfast, or the other way round. (not sure if I've explained that clearly!)

Isnt it because cows milk doesnt have enough nutrients to make it okay as the main milk drink but not harmful in itself ie fine for cooking, cereals ?

yeah, but British guidelines on cow's milk, when it's ok to introduce semi-skimmed etc. are over cautious because the powers that be assume most kids are fed Heinz jar crap.

oh, and comment about "magic switch" was because I've encountered people who think that cow's milk before 12 months will bring on some kind of anaphylactic (sp?) shock.

Wow thanks for all the comments. Interesting point marialuisa. DD doesn't actually drink that much formula milk anyway now that I think about it which suggests that she gets most of her nutrition from the solids she is getting. I agree that the Heinz stuff is dreadful - orange goo no matter what it says on the label. If I have to feed from jars I usually go for the HIPP or Organix stuff which actually tastes of something.

my dd went onto cows milk art 10 months because we were travelling to canada and it was more convienent.She's 12 now and perfectly healthy.

I'm sure I went on cow's milk at 6 months with A & D drops added. My mum was trying to wean me off breast milk and I wouldn't take formula (or whatever it was then) and so doctor advised her to do this. I'm fine